(Closed) I’ve never dealt with this before and I’m scared.

Ok girls, I’ll try to keep this as short as possible but I have a feeling this will be long.

I have been friends with this girl; let’s call her Sue, since we were very young. I was homeschooled until high school—and then I attended the same school as Sue. We didn’t hang out all the time during the year but I considered her one of my closest friends, and we were also both mutual friends with this girl named Jane. The high school we attended together was a private Christian school and Sue was a youth group leader, as well as someone that took her religion seriously. She was often the person out of the three of us that would tell us to straighten up if she didn’t agree with what we were doing (having sex with our boyfriend, etc). It was a little irritating but I just dealt with it.

It’s been three years since we graduated and while I don’t hang out with her very often, still I’m close enough to know who she is. I had a rough time with my family so I completely get it and while I don’t know everything I know she’s been given the world and the choices she’s been making lately are making my head spin.

For the last six months she’s been dating this toxic guy who has a suspended license, a criminal record, is involved in drugs, and has problems with alcohol. It is apparent to Jane and I that he doesn’t care about her as much as he “says”. For some reason she decided she wanted to move out and in with him, even though the two of them have been having plenty of issues.

Fine, whatever, but then she decided she didn’t have enough money set aside to do so and took it upon herself to move in with some guy she says she considers him to be her “brother” and that her and boyfriend moved in there. According to Jane, the two of them (bf and Sue) live in the basement of her “brother”. There is a sheet over the door and she has admitted that they openly have sex in bed while other people are in the room watching TV. Jane went over to her house and said that the smoke from pot was so strong she felt she could get high from just being in the same space. She also said that one time Sue texted Jane and said that her boyfriend had just given her a green pill and she took it without knowing what it was because he said, “it was the mildest form”. This scares me because I also know that not too long before that her boyfriend said to Jane, “dude, there is a pill I really want to take that slows your heart rate down so much people think you are dead for two days and then you wake up.”

I know her well enough to know that this is not who she is. She’s a good woman who is getting caught up in the wrong shit. This guy is not good for her and is influencing her in all of these drugs, and she drinks frequently. I know being an adult is stressful but this isn’t the way to go about it. Anyways, Jane and I have been talking about this situation for a while and we’ve come to the conclusion we need to try to help her out. I didn’t want her to think I was ignoring her as I haven’t talked to her in a long time so I texted her last night and said, “I just wanted to tell you that if it feels like me and Jane are ever upset at you it’s because we are worried for you and want to get you back on the right track. We know who you really are and know this is not you. It just hurts me to know you have been given the world and you choose to this. I love you.” She apparently texted Jane after and freaked out saying I was yelling at her. Today she texted me about what I said and I told her if she wanted to talk about this I would be more than willing to meet up with her. She then brought up all these different things about how I said x,y,z in the past but that’s not the point and I told her that. I told her I was concerned and she’s not getting it.

I know you can’t help someone who is unwilling to help themselves. But I am scared she’s throwing her life away simply because she doesn’t know how to handle it’s challenges. I probably shouldn’t judge but I’m petrified she’ll get involved with the police if they found out she is using and I know she has so much potential but she is throwing it all away.

Should I just leave well enough alone, or try to meet her up and talk some more. I am so anxious about this. My heart is bigger than my head sometimes. I’ve never dealt with this before. Please, anything. I’m sorry for it being so long.

If this were me this is what I would do, but yes it would be very hard.

I would take her our for lunch and tell her every reason why you are concerned and why she is hurting herself and future. Remind her that you love her, but can’t support the lifestyle she is living currently. Then tell her that if she ever needs your help to call you, but until then you cant be friends with her.

Wow, thats really tough, but good for you for wanting to help. Does she have any family that you can talk to and tell them that you are worried about her, how about inviting her over to your house or Jane’s and make a list of why you are legit worried about her. Some times people need to be taken out of the sitituation to realize what is really happening. She may have self- esteem issues if she’s willing to put up with a toxic guy who gives her drugs. I’m not sure if this is any help but good luck! ((hugs!))

PS : I would be very careful about what you say about him to her that will put her on the defensive and she might go and tell him and you don’t know what he is capable of doing.

@CTbride2010:Yeah I am going to avoid talking about her boyfriend as much as possible. I think maybe more we are concerned about you because….rather than it’s your fault that this is happening because…

@SBourgeous:which both me and Jane agreed everyone goes through. Jane had one and while I didn’t agree with everything she did she at least knew when it was too much. And that’s why we’re worried, because I get the rebellious stage, but this seems a lot longer.

As others have said, focus on her behavior, sex out of wedlock (you said she was very religious), sex whilst other people are around, taking drugs. All things she used to not approve of. Don’t talk about the boyfriend or she will just become defensive and shut down.

You know what this sounds a lot like a person I know and unfortunately it took loosing his fiance, countless jobs, countless places to live, and the trust of everyone who loved him to get him to straighten up. It started with cigarettes at 9, yes 9, years old and took another 11 years to get that bad. We found out he was using heroine and everyone basically said “We love you but we will have nothing to do with you anymore if you do not go to rehab. We have done everything in the world for you and you have stolen and lied from us so as of now if you do not go we do not care and we will not have anything more to do with you.” Luckily he chose rehab. His fiance promised to stand by him as long as he went through the whole program and he made it. He is doing well now, went to college, has a job and everything.

Sorry that was long. Moral of the story: Wait until “sue” hits rock bottom. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of WHEN. And WHEN it happens you and Jane just need to be there to say “If you want to hit the bottom you can hit it alone or you can take our help. And go from there.” It’s nothing to be sugar coated. At that point they just need to be told how it is. They screwed up and they can either fix it with your help or suffer alone.

It sounds like Sue is for some reason trying to experience all the things she must feel she missed out on earlier in life. Question – did she date much in high school? Did something happen within a reasonable time frame, like the death of a close family member, loss of a job, failing at school that migh precipitate this kind of personality change?

I had a friend got rhough something like this for a short while, where she was having issues her sneior year in high school and her first year in college, trying to keep up with all the sports and band that she’d been doing in high school, but her father was aslo pushing her out, insisting she work and pay him rent since she was now 18, and it all got to be too much. She wanted to do all her activities, AND have time to go have fun, which in college is more likely to inlcude drinking and drugs (we were both very anti-alcohol in high school) adn promiscuity – hey – ‘everyone’s doing it”!

I saw her start to pretty much use caffine and caffine pills to keep up with everything, while telling me she was going to parties wher she was offered things that sounded a lot like acid. She did them to fit in. I told an older adult to whom we were both kinda close about my concerns – unfortunelty, this adult was well meaning but went and spoke to EVERYONE about it, causing her to hunt me down and burst into my BF’s apartment (we had only been together about 8 months at the time, and I wasn’t living with him yet) and yell at me in front of him, his borther and sister, whoa ll in turn jumped on her case for barging in and trying to start a argument. It pretty much broke up our friendship – BUT she let go of some of her activities, found a good guy and now is a good mother with a good job, supporting her family while her husband is Mr. Dad. We can talk now and then, and Im glad she didn’t spiral as badly as her sister, who got into herion. I tried activty to help her, by pretty much flushing her drugs down the toilet when I found them… it took her having her daughter taken away before she decided to straighten up and get clean.

You can talk to your friend, but she will be defensive and will attack you. For some reason, she wants this right now, or feels she belongs where she is. Unless you can find the Ah-HA moment of why, you really can’t help her more than to say, “Look, I think you’re invovled in things that can hurt you. I’ve been your friend for X amount of years, you know me, and you should know that all I care about is that you are okay. If you want to stay with (insert loser Boyfriend or Best Friend name), of course I can’t stop you. All I can say is he seems to be helping you down a path that worries me and Jane. If you ever change your mind about your relationship with (loser guy) or need any other type of help, please call me or Jane. We want to be there for you, but I can’t (maybe Jane can’t) spend time around the kind of people you seem to want to be around. I’ll call you to see if you want to (go to movies, go shopping, etc.) or just to talk, but I will always be honest with you and if I think you are getting involved in dangerous, harmfl activites. I want to remain your friend, and understand if this makes you angry.”

And then leave it. Call her, spend time as you can with her doing things that have no bearing on her new lifestyle. Don’t bring it up each time you see her – you’ll nag her right back into Loser Guy’s arms and influence. She seems to have hit teenage rebellion a little late.